I lumbered to my feet.

Whatever Ava had hit me with, it hadn't healed my wounds. I could still feel the places I'd been hurting. But the sensations were dimmed now—more distant. Like I’d become a passenger riding within my skin.

The headache had also abated. For the first time in hours, my mind worked unfettered. The phantom weight eased off my neck. I lifted my deformed forearm and tested it, unable to bring myself to look.

The boon Bazaar had granted me would not last forever. But right now, it would have to do.

Ballboss stepped forward. “I'm coming with.”

“No,” I said, flinching as my voice rang clear in my head. I coughed and pulled up my gaiter. “Bazaar's hurt. Harvest too. You need to get them to the medics.”

“Then we should retreat together. You can't handle YamaYama alone.”

I jabbed a thumb in Activity’s direction. “I won't.”

Ballboss studied my face. “I don't like this, Volley. I admit I’m new here, but I’m still responsible for you kids. If I let you get harmed, Pro-now will have my head.”

“Bazaar is one of us too, sir.”

He looked like he would contest that, and then he deflated with a sigh. “She is.” He moved over to Bazaar and scooped her into his arms. She vanished into his pocket dimension.

Ballboss patted my shoulder then melded with the sand. A short beat later, he reappeared beside Harvest and nudged Activity aside. “Go with Volley,” he said. “I'll take her.”

“You make sure she's alright,” Activity choked.

“I will.”

Activity muttered a curse. He leaped into the air and landed beside me, showering me with dirt. Golden bands traveled up his form, glowing sharper than they had moments ago, courtesy of Bazaar.

“Where?” he snarled.

“The shoreline,” I said, “just down the path.”

“Good. Don't get in my way, Volley.” He took off in a run.

Of course. Even in dire situations, Activity just had to act the fool. But I wouldn’t follow his example. He was angry. Let him have his words.

We tore down the path. Activity pulled on ahead of me, leaving me far in his wake. I didn’t protest. Someone had to be the battering ram. And as far as battering rams went, Activity was the perfect choice.

The problem lay in the scope of YamaYama's abilities. He'd rescued Cnidarian using Harvest’s creations, and trees definitely qualified as living things. What more could he animate then? Bugs? Bacteria? Natural resources like air or water? Certainly not humans, or he would have ripped us to shreds in seconds.

The shore came into full clarity. A few shapes lingered by the waterside. I braced myself for the barrage of tricks YamaYama could employ. We had to take him out first. Anything less spelled our doom.

Unfortunately, YamaYama had no interest in continuing the battle.

Speedboats had arrived at the shore, stealthier than they had any right to be. Activity caught sight of them and sprinted off the path, down the incline toward the Villains.

The shadowy group shouted as he approached. They spread out along the bank, ducking between moored canoes and rotten driftwood. Activity cleared the slope only to be greeted by muzzle flashes. Bullets cracked along the landscape, tossing mud into the air.

The shooters weren't the rank-and-file gang members we’d faced back at the mill. These were proper gunmen—the Four-oh-Four's corps d’elite. Their dark fatigues blended in with the terrain, and they fired with lethal precision, rarely missing the mark. Activity crashed into a hail of lead before springing aside. They chased him with bullets, scoring multiple hits on his back.

I threw myself against the ground and crawled forward. I might be decked in Panzer, but I wasn't surviving those shots.

A grenade went out, scattering mud and slush. Activity screamed above the din. A speedboat veered away from the shore, engines near inaudible.

The gunmen didn't relent. They backed out into the water, barely disturbing the surface. The canoes bobbed in time with their movements, making for solid cover. Gunfire erupted in cadence. Each time one shooter stopped to reload, another filled the gap.

A second speedboat slipped out into the water. No.

Activity took note. He launched into the air so hard the ground caved beneath him. He smashed into a canoe, and it shattered, tossing the man behind it far out into the water.

The water roared in rage. Of course, YamaYama could animate water. It surged up from the shore, submerging the shooters. Tendrils filled with driftwood bombarded Activity, imitating the movement of arms. They slapped him senseless and dragged him into the lagoon.

I took that as my cue to move. YamaYama's watery assault proved a double-edged sword. The murky tendrils occupied Activity at the cost of scattering his forces. I sprang from my crouch and ran down the incline, doing my best to remain undetected.

A gunman spotted me. I blasted him in the chest. Another raised his rifle, but the lagoon had become a gift that kept on giving. It spun like a twister, sending boats and shooters flying left and right.

The twister became a wall, three times as tall as I was. Whips of liquid sentience scourged the banks, scoring fatal wounds on two of the gunmen. One such tendril darted past my head and would have claimed it for spoils had I failed to duck.

The fleeing speedboats gained distance from the shore. An old canoe swirled in the twister, whishing through the air. It fell for me, and I scrambled out of the way lest it should cave my chest.

This was one of those situations where I hated being right. YamaYama was as versatile as I'd given him credit for, and he probably hadn't shown all of his tricks.

Activity thrashed in the middle of the storm. But how could anyone fight water? The entire construct resembled a gaping maw now. Each time Activity emerged, a hundred tendrils dragged him back into the depths.

Think, Volley. Think.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The immediate problem of gunfire had been disrupted, solved by the enemy himself. We were right back where we’d started: YamaYama in flight, Elixir in tow. I retreated out of range of the grasping tendrils and spied the speedboats heading in two different directions.

Pain welled in my jaw. I couldn't let YamaYama escape. Not after how far we'd come. I needed something—anything to close the gap . . .

There!

The ruined husk of a sailboat sat at the shoreline, half-submerged in water and mud. A gunman swung through the air, screeching into the lagoon. Blades of water lashed out above the boat, tearing deep grooves into the mud.

I took a deep breath and scrounged up whatever courage I could find. Then, cursing my bravado, I ran for the boat.

Regret came near instantly. The storm whipped my face, forcing my eyelids shut. Vengeful tendrils carved open the ground behind me. I splashed through the carnage half-blind, varying my movements.

Almost there . . .

I dove for the sailboat. The cool sensation of water closing around my ankle was all the warning I got before I was yanked—boots and all—high into the air.

Akinsete spun in a circle. The muddy shore grinned up at me, looking different from upside down the sky. My finger brushed against the broken mast of the sailboat, and in that moment, I made my gambit.

Old pinewood groaned. The decrepit boat scraped sand and barreled into the air. Two speedboats fled the shore. But only one held my quarry and his captive. It had to be the second one. He would expect us to focus fire at the first.

The sailboat rose in a perfect arc, propelled by the vector forces I’d imparted. I lost sight of the boat for a moment as the twister twirled me along its surface. Foul-smelling lagoon water surged up my nostrils. The sailboat came down over the second speedboat, trajectory slightly askew.

My tongue dried in my mouth.

Ballistic missile met escape vehicle, obliterating the latter's bow. The passengers aboard tumbled into the deep.

Elixir . . . Damn. I hadn't killed her, had I? My gambit hinged on the fact that YamaYama would save her, but what if I'd also knocked him into next week?

I flailed through the air in an arc, waiting with bated breath for the twister to disperse.

It didn't.

The last thing I saw before crashing into cold sleep was the first speedboat skipping into the night.

I abandoned any notions of sleep a short moment later. The water clawed down my airways, hastening my transition from mild slumber into violent death.

I raged within the current, kicking against the dread embrace of murk.

“Will you fucking stop it?” Activity yelled. He tossed me onto the bank.

Water swelled out of my gullet, scraping my throat. I swam in a puddle of my own vomit until I had the sense to pull down the gaiter. Fire lanced up my lungs, triggering a hacking fit.

I lived.

I rolled onto my back, gasping for breath. The bright, starry sky twinkled down at me. A vivid cloud wafted in the direction of the moon. Then it blurred, and tears rolled down my cheeks.

I’d failed. I’d botched our last chance to stop Evans, letting him go scot-free. Reality smarted, didn’t it? I'd made a call with Elixir’s wellbeing riding on the line and I’d bungled it. Gosh.

The ground shuddered. Activity snarled nearby, kicking entire boats back into the water. Where was my radio? If I contacted Pro-now, we could still—

“Drop the gun.”

I turned.

Activity stood opposite a gunman. The latter had his arms outstretched, feet slipping in the mud.

“Drop it!”

Gunfire sparked.

Activity stood over the shooter, or more accurately, the crater he’d become. The man’s legs poked out of the hole, splayed out at an angle.

The sting worsened in my gullet. “Hey, that’s not . . .”

The sound of a cocking gun filled the night.

“Drop it,” Activity repeated.

I stumbled to my feet.

Three gunmen had regained their bearings amidst the wreckage. One retained his rifle, training it on Activity. There had been at least seven shooters at the start of the fight. How many now lay buried within the lagoon?

“You don't scare me,” the one with the gun said. He spoke with a Southwestern accent, too young for the proficiency he’d displayed. “If you come any closer, I will kill you.”

Activity stepped forward.

“Second one's awake,” one of the unarmed gunmen warned.

The gun wielder swiveled on me, cursing in ethnic language.

I furrowed my brows. Drumbeats pulsed on the side of my head. Bazaar's pick-me-up, impressive though it was, had dissipated. I neared my last legs.

“Surrender,” I said. The command sounded nothing like I'd intended. It tumbled from my tender throat squeezed into a squeak. “You've got just the gun. One gun against two Supers. You've seen what we can do.”

I was bluffing, yes, but the gang members didn’t need to know that. They exchanged nervous looks, whispering among themselves.

Jeez, how young were they? A month ago, when I'd cornered Gunner and his friends, the tactics they'd pulled off in that narrow corridor had thrown me for a loop. Did the Four-oh-Four make a habit out of training their members? If so . . .

“Someone close to Rabidor went missing,” Pro-now had said. “If you understand, go easy on the thugs . . .”

Ugh. As if the situation wasn't messy enough already.

The teenager in the lead squared his feet. “If I drop the gun, would you let us go?”

“No,” I said. “But we'd bring you in quietly. Your employer has abandoned you—killed some of you, to be precise. You don't need to suffer more consequences on his behalf.”

A cool breeze blew over from the lagoon. The teenager in the lead wavered, then tossed the gun aside.

“Finally,” Activity said.

“Activity,” I warned. “No—!”

Activity slammed his fist into the boy's gut, lifting him clean off the ground. He sidestepped a blow from the second and retaliated with a kick. Bone snapped like twig.

The third rushed at him with a knife, but Activity ignored him. His foot down on the second boy he’d attacked. Arms, fingers, knees—each joint he stomped on got ground into a pulp.

The knife wielder lunged, snapping his blade against Activity's neck. Activity backhanded him, and the latter skipped headfirst across the sand. He landed in a heap by the slope and didn't get up.

“Bastard,” the first boy wheezed, clawing at Activity's face. A second punch to the gut robbed him of his intentions.

Activity caught him before he could fall. “Bastard? The moment you raised that gun to oppress people, you made your fucking choice.”

“Activity!” I said. “You’ve won. He surrendered. Let him go.”

“You stay out of this, fuckface,” Activity said. “If I wanted your opinion, I'd have asked for it.”

“Are you crazy? Are you on a power trip or something? You’re taking this too far!”

Activity glared at me. The look in his eyes stopped me in my tracks. “I don't accept surrender from terrorists.”

The nozzle of a spray can hissed. Activity recoiled with a cry, dropping the gunman. The latter reached for his rifle and shoved the muzzle in Activity's face.

He never got to fire.

The first blow splintered the gun, taking the boy’s fingers along with it. The second glanced off his jaw. Activity raised his fist.

Dammit. This was not the teammate I had come to hate. Activity was a jerk, but standing here in his place was a Villain, uglier and scarier than Exhaust had been.

I tapped the small of Activity's back, and he rocketed forward, tearing a trough through the sand.

The boy he'd been fighting recoiled from me. Blood dribbled down his chin, features contorted.

What the hell had Activity been thinking? I knew he was unhinged, but this was pretty morbid even by his standards. I would have been better off ignoring this, but how could I overlook executions carried out in cold blood?

Activity scythed the air. I ducked beneath his onrush, saving my head. Rough fingers closed around my vest. He flung me aside, and I cratered in the sand. White pain surged up my mutated arm which had broken my fall.

“You never know when to quit, eh?” Activity said, cracking his shoulder. “I would have come around to you either way. You didn’t need to bother.”

I groaned and rolled over in the sand.

Activity stood next to me. “Stay down.” He stamped me in the back.

Bright lights erupted in my brain, shutting off my ability to scream.

“Stay down, fuckface,” he repeated, stamping me again. “You think you're hot stuff? Some kind of noble action figure? You draw the line when it comes to hurting murderers, but you're fine setting monsters on your teammate?”

The stomping didn't let up.

“Stop,” I cried, curling away from his blows. I couldn't feel my legs.

The realization chilled me to the bone. I couldn't feel my legs.

“Toye!” I warned.

“Fuck you,” he spat, bringing his foot down on my back. “Everything was fine until you came along! I got a black mark on my record. Did you know that? Kabash didn't tell you, did he? You attacked me with a rat, yet I was the one who got penalized. And what did they do to you?” His foot fell in time with his words. “Made you leader of the fucking team!”

A rope snapped within me. A carefully repressed madness, one I’d buried even lower than the fumes.

Fumes and madness both ignited, traveling up the injury on my back. I blasted mud into Activity's face. He sputtered, and my fingers came down on his knee. I flexed my power and launched him into the wreckage.

I reached for a plastic shell, grimacing as my hand came up empty. The only weapon left in my bandolier was the ominous length of steel pressed up against my chest.

Activity rose from the mud. Without a word, he dove for the kill.